The chariots and trumpets that met Justin Trudeau at the federal Liberal mini-convention in Toronto Saturday may have stemmed as much from relief as from zeal. Thank God, they were all thinking as they hooted, hollered and honked, we still have a few people who can plan, run and finish a competent campaign.

Trudeau and his team have spent the past eight months systematically remaking his image, from privileged gadfly and charity boxer to national leader-in-waiting. Judging from recent polls they’ve done a good job. Textbook, in fact.

Now comes the harder work of ratcheting expectations back down into the troposphere, so that Trudeau can once again work from where he’s most comfortable, as the putative underdog — with eyes on an election still two and a half years off. The controlled lowering of expectations will be considerably trickier than the exuberant raising.

But first, let’s acknowledge this: The man formerly known as Trudeau the Younger has come a long way in a little over a year.

It was in February of 2012 that Trudeau mused in a French-language radio interview that he might consider separating from Stephen Harper’s Canada. The opprobrium was immediate and intense. Soon after, the dauphin asserted his patriotism in the Commons foyer, insisting he’d been misunderstood. It was a bravura speech but also, as was his wont at the time, unscripted and a little wild. He spoke about himself in the third person.

Saturday, by contrast, Trudeau was controlled. He worked with a teleprompter and stuck to a prepared text. The speech was well written, forceful, and hit all the notes he’s stressed through the campaign, especially middle-class interests. His audience of Liberal partisans ate it up. Even since last October, Trudeau’s speaking style has improved. He appears to have undergone something of the stage actor’s metamorphosis, when shifting to TV or film: a rasping away of dramatic flourishes.

The speech not only put all Trudeau’s rivals in the shade. It compared well with outings earlier in the afternoon by Bob Rae and Paul Martin.

Just based on the tactical outcome, Trudeau’s people will be thrilled. They planned well, stuck to their plan, and are poised to take control of the Liberal party.

Now though, the real internal challenges present themselves.

The most important of these is policy – the so-called “soul” of the party. Important elements of the Liberal old guard, as several of Saturday’s speeches made clear yet again, implicitly do not share Trudeau’s views about how to generate public policy. That is a little grenade that has thus far escaped much notice. Once he becomes leader, which will happen this Sunday in Ottawa, it will be primed to explode.

From the outset Trudeau has been branded as policy-light. He has, in fact, advanced broad positions – not many specific policies. Under fire from critics, especially former leadership candidate Marc Garneau, Trudeau explained himself: He wasn’t about to bring forward a policy booklet already baked – as, for example, Michael Ignatieff did in 2006. Rather than lock himself in a “back room” with a few Liberal savants, generate a platform, then try to foist it on the public, he would ask Canadians themselves to drive the process.

This has been widely derided as an excuse for a lack of ideas. It isn’t. Rather, it’s evidence Trudeau or someone influential in his camp understands why the Conservatives have been winning elections, and wants to try to eat their lunch – which is populism. That will be anathema to some Liberal diehards. Contrary to the platitude, the Liberal party is home to plenty of ideologues. It’s an ideology built around the party itself, the primacy and elemental goodness of its old ideas, and the inviolability of past platforms.

That ideology runs squarely up against this fact: The Liberal party has been in decline for nearly a decade, and leadership alone cannot explain it. Canadians between 2004 and 2011 shifted to the Conservatives not because of a groundswell of personal affection for Harper, or mere disaffection for former Liberal leaders, but because of policy. Conservative platforms and core policy positions are designed with scientific precision around public opinion. Recent Liberal platforms have not been.

Boiled down, the point is this: Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s Main Street is no different from Trudeau’s Middle Class. They are composed of the same people, with the same fundamental aspirations. Therefore, Liberal policy designed from the ground up will de facto set aside some old Liberal positions that are worshipped by Grit diehards – and adopt some new ones that are little different from Conservative policies, except for tone. That especially holds true on the economy. The main points of deviation will be democracy and justice. Trudeau, based on a careful reading of his speeches, sees this. The body of his party, based on a careful reading of most other recent Liberal utterances, does not.

That is a fundamental obstacle facing the new Liberal leader, come Sunday. It may prove a considerably tougher nut to crack than the leadership itself.

I am a national political columnist for Postmedia News. My work appears in the National Post, on Canada.com, the Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Halifax Chronicle-Herald... read more and Vancouver Sun, among other publications. I write primarily about national politics and policy.View author's profile